


Blueprints

by orphan_account



Series: Blueprints [1]
Category: Blueprints - Fandom
Genre: (probably not), Gen, but I'm working on making this it's own fandom, but any advice is always welcome, it'll happen, literally not in a fandom, sorry - Freeform, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1737080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Beth comes into work Wednesday afternoon, she's expecting another big night full of Big Macs and French fries. Except her restaurant is out of food. Aspiring restaurateur that she is, she comes up with a plan to make this work and, possibly, remove the stigma that comes with working at McDonald's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprints

I consider myself lucky it happened on a Wednesday. Noelle isn’t there on Wednesdays, and she would’ve fought me every step of the way. As it happened, Andy worked that day. He greeted Ella and me with a grimace as we clocked in to replace the two adults who were supposed to be off half an hour ago, but due to terrible scheduling and malchance were still here.

  
“What’s up?” Ella asked, her ponytail swinging back and forth.

  
“We have two things of nuggets in the freezer.”

“How do we only have two cases?”

“Not two cases,” Andy said, pressing his lips together. “Two bags.”

Ella and I exchange a look, both of our mouths falling open.

“Do you mean to tell me there are only forty-eight nuggets in this store right now?” I ask.

“Yup.” Andy starts hitting the sides of his fists together.

I go over to check the cabinet. Three empty trays, lights off.

“Don’t want to waste any. The four and a half minute wait is making them last a while.”

“Why can’t you go to another store and get some? Hilltown or Audubon?”

“What happened to truck?” I ask. “I thought truck comes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday now.”

“Warehouse workers are striking. No stores have gotten truck for a week. Sofia and Jenny both thought it was because of the flooding, but there was a fax from Tom waiting at open.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Ella laughs nervously.

Andy raises his eyebrows and shrugs, making a helpless gesture with his hands.

“What else do we have?” I ask.

“Not much. We had to start lunch at ten today because we gave a whole bunch of breakfast stuff to English Village two days ago, so not only do we not have breakfast food, we are completely out of crispy chicken, french fries, and shake mix. However, we have five boxes of strawberry cream pies.”

I rub my tongue against my teeth while Ella lets out a disbelieving laugh. I go over to the side of drive-thru’s drink fountain, where the schedule for the day is posted. The evening section is a lot larger than usual. I look at Andy, with a point to the schedule and raised eyebrows.

He shrugs. “Maureen apparently thought that we should make up for the lack of managers by doubling the amount of crew members.” Wednesdays are our second biggest night of the week.

“That’d be great if we had any food to sell,” Ella exasperates, leaning against the food’s warming zone.

Silence settles between the three of us as time stands still. No customers come in. The clock silently ticks. We all just stand there, helpless. Until,

“What if we did?” I ask, chewing my bottom lip.

“Did what?” Andy looks up.

“Had food to sell.”

They both stare at me like they always do, like I’m nuts. I probably am.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I start.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I walk in half an hour later with half a dozen Giant bags. I walk past the newly erected, very professional paper sign taped to the window, CLOSED UNTIL 5PM, and knock on the glass door. Andy comes over and unlocks it to let me in, taking some of the bags. I see the 4 o’clock crew sitting at the table next to the counter.

“I explained the situation to them already but left out your idea,” Andrew says.

“Yeah, Beth, why am I here when I could be sleeping?” Dani asks, Starbucks in hand.

“So we don’t have food, right, so we can’t act like we normally do and since we can’t do that, why not just go all out?”

They stare blankly at me.

“We can make this a real restaurant, a real place to eat.”

Kyle’s eyes shift around.

“That sounds like a lot of work, having to learn how to make new stuff.”

“Nope,” pipes Ella. “Beth went out and got all this food that we would normally use, only now the milk doesn't last for three months, and there isn’t a coat of grease on everything.”

I nod, grateful that Ella likes this plan.

“And you don’t think we’ll get in trouble?” Sarah asks, pushing her straight brown hair behind her ear.

“No way,” I lie. “If anything, Tom and Noelle should thank us for keeping the store going during such a crisis. We’ll probably get even more customers now that we’ll have better food and service for the same price.”

“How’d you even get the money for that food?” Nathan leans forward.

“With my debit card.”

“You gave up your measly paychecks from McDonald’s to keep the prison running?”

I spread a cheshire grin. “Consider it an investment.”

Dani snorts from her latte. “More like a gamble.”

I shrug, keeping my smile. “Whichever you prefer.”

“So how’s this going to work?” Tori asks.

“Right,” I start. “We are going to reopen in an hour, but not the drive-thru. Andy’s already created a sign?” He nods.”Tori, you’re gonna be in charge of seating people and taking care of this section here,” I say, gesturing to where we’re seated. “Kate, you can wait on the middle section while Sarah gets the area around the edges. Ryan, you’re busing,” he groans, “with Alex in the back doing dishes. Ruby, Meghan, and Ella can prep all the ingredients.”

“Wait, what?” Meghan’s spread across her chair.

“What?”

“What does ‘prepping all the ingredients’ mean?” She slurps her Sprite.

“Chopping the vegetables to put on the burgers. I bought all that we normally have, except we have to actually chop the onions ourselves along with the lettuce, the tomatoes, et cetera,” I explain.

“So do we have all the same sandwiches?” Tyler asks, flattening his golden brown hair.

“Eh, sort of.” Andy moves his hand in a seesaw motion. “We can make any of the burgers, and we’ll try and get rid of all the stuff in the back we have left. I’ll give you guys,” motioning to Sarah, Tori, and Kate, “a list of what we got.”

“I bought twenty pounds of potatoes and printed out a recipe for french fries, so let’s try and get that going as soon as possible.”

They nod.

“Naturally, Tyler and Nathan will be in the kitchen, with Andy helping out when they need it. Nina -- let’s have you stocking the store as much as possible, I want a visual on what we have.”

“And you, master?” Tyler inquires, with his shit-eating grin.

Crap. I forgot about me.

“She’ll be figuring out ways to get as much business as possible and essentially running the store,” Andy declares.

I stare at him. He stares back, his arms crossed. Rarely have I seen him look so serious, choosing instead to live his college years to the fullest.

“Your baby, your responsibility.”

The corners of my mouth flinch upward, betraying my excitement. I look around at my co-workers.

“It’s go time.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At six, dinner is running smoothly. The customers initially had some reservations, but Tori handles it beautifully. Meghan accidentally cuts the potatoes too thin, so we have a batch of potato chips that are made. Some of the strawberry cream pies are actually sold, although more people want cookies. The tips entice the crew to stay longer than they were scheduled. We stay open until the normal time of midnight, but even by 11, it’s just Andy, Ella, and me again. Andy’s on his third monster, me on my sixth coffee, and Ella on the last strand of willpower. There’s much less to clean up now that we’re back to basics. Ella’s washing the last of the dishes while Andy and I count the intake.

“What do you think Noelle will say?” I keep counting, and my voice is low, unwilling to disturb the rare quietness in the restaurant.

“She’ll be mad because you did something different. She’ll be mad because she wasn’t here for it.”

“She’ll be mad because it was me.”

He doesn’t deny it. He keeps on entering the numbers into the computer. With a forceful click of the enter button, he looks at me, a smile on his face.

“Good?”

“Very good. We made three times the normal amount.”

“Only because we charged more.”

“That is partially it but when you look at individual items sold, we still sold more.”

“We gonna do it again tomorrow?”

He considers this, then starts rifling through the blue scheduling binder before pulling out a slice of paper.

“Nikki opens tomorrow.”

I scoff.

“Great, so opening an hour and a half later than we’re supposed to?”

He tries to be diplomatic and not smile at my accurate assessment of my crack-addicted manager. An idea starts to spin in my head.

“We could do this on an even larger scale at breakfast. Anyone can make breakfast food. We could make actual pancakes, even mini-ones infused with syrup to replicate McGriddles.”

I grab a piece of paper and quickly start sketching out my idea for breakfast. I can feel Andy’s eyes on me, probably looking at me like I’m a freak, but I don’t care. I just know that this could be something big.

“You workin’ tomorrow?” He spins around in his chair.

I don’t look up from my paper. “Yeah, seven to three, I think.” My mind is buzzing with awakeness.

“Cool.” He glances at the computer. “You should clock out, it’s almost one. It’d be a shame to lose a thousand bucks that you earned just because you broke the law.”

I scoff. “It’s a stupid law. I’m more of an adult that half of the actual adults here. How late I’m out shouldn’t be determined by a bunch of white old men who haven’t worked a part time job in decades.” I feel my nostrils flare.

“Woah there, kid. Once drastic change at a time.” Andy laughs at me. I cross my arms. “How about you go get some sleep and come back in the morning?”

I almost open my mouth to argue, but then I remember not to be an idiot. I grab my keys and run, mind still abuzz.


End file.
